Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
In p. 184 the Reviewer sneers at me for writing "Roum" in lieu of Rum or Rúm;
but what would the latter have suggested to the home-reader save a reference
to the Jamaican drink? He also corrects me (vol. v. 248) in the matter of the
late Mr. Emanuel Deutsch (p. 184), who excised "our Saviour" from the article
on the Talmud reprinted amongst his literary remains. The Reviewer, or
inspirer of the Review, let me own, knew more of Mr. Deutsch than I, a simple
acquaintance, could know; but perhaps he does not know all, and if he did he
probably would not publish his knowledge. The truth is that Mr. Deutsch was,
during his younger years, a liberal, nay, a latitudinarian in religion,
differing little from the so-styled "Christian Unitarian." But when failing
health drove him to Egypt and his hour drew nigh he became (and all honour to
him!) the scrupulous and even fanatical Hebrew of the Hebrews; he consorted
mainly with the followers and divines of his own faith, and it is said that he
ordered himself when dying to be taken out of bed and placed upon the bare
floor. The "Saviour" of the article was perhaps written in his earlier phase
of religious thought, and it was excised as the end drew in sight.
"Captain Burton's experience in the East seems to have obliterated any (all?)
sentiments of chivalry, for he is never weary of recording disparaging
estimates of women, and apparently delights in discovering evidence of
'feminine devilry"' (p. 184). This argumentum ad feminam is sharpish practice,
much after the manner of the Christian "Fathers of the Church" who, themselves
vehemently doubting the existence of souls non- masculine, falsely and
foolishly ascribed the theory and its consequences to Mohammed and the
Moslems. And here the Persian proverb holds good "Harf-i-kufr kufr níst"--to
speak of blasphemy is not blasphemous. Curious readers will consult the
article "Woman" in my Terminal Essay (x. 167), which alone refutes this silly
scandal. I never pretended to understand woman, and, as Balzac says, no wonder
man fails when He who created her was by no means successful. But in The
Nights we meet principally Egyptian maids, matrons and widows, of whose
"devilry" I cannot speak too highly, and in this matter even the pudibund Lane
is as free-spoken as myself. Like the natives of warm, damp and malarious
lowlands and river-valleys adjacent to rugged and healthy uplands, such as
Mazanderán, Sind, Malabar and California, the passions and the sexual powers
of the females greatly exceed those of their males, and hence a notable
development of the crude form of polyandry popularly termed whoredom. Nor have
the women of the Nile valley improved under our rule. The last time I visited
Cairo a Fellah wench, big, burly and boisterous, threatened one morning, in a
fine new French avenue off the Ezbekiyah Gardens, to expose her person unless
bought off with a piastre. And generally the condition of womenkind throughout
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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